Sunday, 27 July 2014

1978 Music Man Sabre 1

Usually I don't care for strat-shaped guitars but the Music Man Sabrehas an interesting story and it's not a mere copy, since it was conceived by Leo Fender himself during his short time in the company. By the time the hugely successful stratocaster shape had become an industry standard, so it was not improper for Mr Fender to re-use his own design, even if he was not owing Fender anymore..

The Sabre has the cool sternness of 1970s guitars and its almost awkward big metal control plate feels like they needed room for extra electronics and controls, too bad for the design… The massive bridge with tele-style saddles seems more reliable than Fender models and like the Stingray - the other guitar Leo Fender made with Music Man, humbuckers have been favored to single coils, but by then guitars are not made for country music any more, but for rock!

3 comments:

Beautiful guitar. I had a Sabre II, but the extremely slim neck profile gave me wrist cramp. I sold it for a pittance. I believe the Sabre I had a chunkier neck profile, perhaps I should keep an eye out for one of those. The Sabres had active pickups - with mine I could practice by just plugging the headphones directly into the jack socket!

Hi, I believe the I and II designations refer to neck radius, not necessarily profile. This was how it was for the Stingray guitars anyway. I found this comment on line:

"FYI - the only difference in a Leo-era Sting Ray I and a Sting Ray II is the radius of the neck. I might have this reversed, but I'm 90% sure the "I" was the 12" radius and the "II" was the 7.5" radius. Besides the MM Sting Ray and Sabre guitars Leo used that same designation on the early G&L guitars like the F-100."

IMO the rounded shape of the Sting Ray is a bit better looking than the more strat-like Sabre. The Sting Ray also had active pickups, but the preamp is usually out of order when found today.